Cannes, January 6, 1862.
(I no longer remember dates.)

Dear Friend: I shall not tell you of the sunshine of Cannes, for fear of causing you too great distress amidst the snows in which you must be at this moment. What is written to me from Paris makes me cold just to read. I suppose you must be still at R——, or on the journey therefrom; so that I shall take my chances in addressing this to your official residence, as the surest place for you to be found.

I have here, as companion and neighbour, M. Cousin, who came to be cured of laryngitis, and who talks like a one-eyed magpie, eats like an ogre, and is astonished not to recover under this beautiful sky, which he now sees for the first time. He is, moreover, very interesting, for he possesses the gift of being witty to everybody. When alone with his servant, I fancy that he talks to him as he would to the most coquettish Orleanist or Legitimist duchess. The native Cannais are fascinated by him, and you may imagine how they will stare when they are informed that this man, who talks well on any subject, has translated Plato, and is the lover of Madame de Longueville. The only inconvenience is that he does not know when to stop talking. For a philosopher of the Eclectic school, it is a pity not to have adopted the good features of the Peripatetics.

I am not doing much of anything here. I am studying botany in a book and with the plants which fall under my hand, but every instant I bewail my bad sight. It is a study which I should have begun twenty years ago, when I had my eyes. It is, however, very amusing, although supremely immoral, since for one lady there are always at least six or eight gentlemen, all eager to offer her what she accepts with much indifference from the right and the left. I regret exceedingly not to have brought my microscope; still, with my spectacles I have seen stamens making love to a pistil without showing any embarrassment at my presence.

I am sketching also, and am reading in a Russian book the history of another Cossack, a much better soldier than Stenka Razine, named, unfortunately, Bogdan Chmielnicki. With a name so difficult to pronounce, it is not astonishing that he has remained unknown to us Occidentals, who remember only names of Latin or Greek derivation.

How has the winter treated you? and how do you manage the little children who absorb so much of your time? Apparently you find the bringing up of children an amusing occupation. I have had experience only in raising cats, who have given me scant satisfaction, excepting the last one who had the honour to know you. The intolerable thing about children, it seems to me, is that you must wait so long to know what they have in their brains, and to hear them reason. It is a great pity that the trouble taken in cultivating the youngsters’ intelligence can not be undertaken by the chits themselves, and that new ideas come to them almost unconsciously. The principal question is, to know whether they should be taught silly things, as we were, or whether we should talk to them reasonably. There is something to be said for and against both systems.

Some day, when you pass Stassin’s, kindly look in his catalogue for a book by Max MÜller, a professor in Oxford, on linguistics; unfortunately I do not recollect the title of the book. You must tell me if it costs very much, and if I shall be obliged to forego my fancy to possess it. I am told it is an admirable analysis of language.

I have made the acquaintance of a poor cat who lives in a hut back in the woods. I take him bread and meat, and as soon as he spies me coming he runs a quarter of a mile to meet me. I regret that I can not take him away with me, for he has marvellous powers of instinct.

Good-bye, dear friend. I hope this letter will find you in as good health and as flourishing condition as last year. I wish you a prosperous and happy New Year....